Here is the link to the newest version of the "Pink" post, as promised:
http://www.swordofthespirit.net/bulwark/march10p4.htm
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Kicking Crutches
It has been a lively week for this UCO staff worker! I had a sense, about 1-2 weeks ago, that the Lord wanted to give the Ann Arbor UCO Summer Household ladies a home before UofM's spring break. Why is this significant? Because it can be a jungle of a process to find the right kind of housing for Women's SHH. I won't bore or stress you with the details of that process! But I can say that I believe God gave me extra zeal and wisdom so that I could help Him fulfill this word. Yesterday was the final day before UofM's spring break and, lo and behold, our faithful God did secure a house for us; a deposit was paid and a form was signed. There is at least one household of six women (that is, six women have committed 100 percent) at this point, praise God!
Throughout these past two weeks, the Lord's been speaking to me via this housing search about confidence and humility. First, confidence: God seeks a faithful yet decisive servant. He wants the kind of servant who, while the Master is away, goes ahead and takes risks in order to double the amount of talents originally given to him by the Master. This kind of servant knows his Master that well, that His Master is demanding. (Matthew 25:20)
Mary at Bethany: she poured out the oil and wiped Jesus's feet with it and her hair. Did he say to her, "Mary, take this oil, pour it out on my feet, and wipe my feet with your hair"? No. She took the initiative. She didn't have to ask Him or need Him to ask her to do this specifically. She knew Him. (John 12: 1-8)
There are other examples. In the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the father needs to make it explicit to the older son that the older son had always been welcome to have a celebration with friends. Clearly, the older son has not taken the kind of initiative that the tennant and Mary do. There is still something lacking in the older son's understanding of his father's love and nature. Similarly, the father needs to put the robe on the younger son's shoulders and encourage this son to feel welcome as a son rather than a slave. The younger son still has more to learn about his father's love. (Luke 15: 11-32)
As I have already said, I think the Lord has been revealing more about confidence and humility to me through my SHH housing search in ways similar to those in these Scriptural examples. Okay: what is humility not? It does not consist of focusing on weakness or defects; that too, is an expression of pride, this kind of self-deprecation. This self-decprecation is sinful because it consists of a focus on the self rather than God.
True humility exists when our eyes are fixed on Him alone, when our hearts are fixed on the state of His rather than the state of our own, however 'good' or 'bad' that state might be. In times of blessing, all he asks is that we thank Him. In times of distress, all He asks is that we turn to Him. True humility says "I need the Lord" not only because we "know" by faith and by the Bible that we "need" Him. No; even more profoundly, true humility says "I need Him because I love Him." Our love for Him becomes so strong that we can say it is a matter of need. An example: when a man or woman says that they "need" another man or woman, what they mean to express is really love.
God makes it very clear throughout Scripture, in such examples as I have already given, that He does not "need" a slave. He is God: He does not "need" anything or anyone. He wants and desires to lavish love on sons and daughters. He wants the older son to come inside, the younger son to feel comfortable dressed in fine things, to give His children the Kingdom. He wants the Samaritan woman to not just have water but Himself.
Perhaps a more radical example is Job. So often times, I wonder if we say "Poor Job!" too quickly. I wonder whether we can say, "Blessed Job!" The Lord does not want Job to just have good or bad things. God is after the full capacity of Job's heart to love. God cares more about the heart of Job than He cares about the earthly concerns Job has. God's unrelenting and perfect love for Job drove Him to purify Job's heart, even if that meant suffering and ridicule for Job. And then He lavished on Job and gave back to him tenfold all the more because that is the good nature of our God!
God's love for His children is truly relentless and pure. How could we ever hope to imiate such love in our response to Him if He didn't so strongly encourage us to sacrifice all for Him? He knows our condition, our weakness, so He made His loving encouragement Law. And when we failed to keep that, to fully receive His love through perfect obedience to the Law, He sent His own Son, Jesus Christ, that we might be assured all the more that He understands our Fallen condition and so that ultimately, we might be saved from our condition.
Yet His Law and His Son remain the keys to understanding our Father's heart. His Law is not to be discounted. It is an instruction manual to God's heart; we learn much about how He loves and His Nature when we study and keep His Commandments. If it seems as though God has unreasonably high expectations of us, if the Commandments seem too strict, this is only because of our woundedness not His unreasonableness.
And yet we have a Divine Physician, Jesus Christ, who heals us through His death and resurrection! The title of this post is "Kicking Crutches." God has, as I've said in various ways throughout this post, been encouraging me to kick the crutches of fear and self. God has been showing me that although I am a sinner, with His grace, I can really be confident and run. We can kick crutches and run on His strength and grace. We can seek and expect to find the unexpected. We can find a housing situation in downtown Ann Arbor for two months before the end of February. We can walk on water as long as we don't look down and look up at Him. We can trust the grain of wheat to grow even if we can't always see it growing from beneath the ground.
We really can, do, and love "through Jesus Christ who strengthens us" (Philippians 4:13).
Throughout these past two weeks, the Lord's been speaking to me via this housing search about confidence and humility. First, confidence: God seeks a faithful yet decisive servant. He wants the kind of servant who, while the Master is away, goes ahead and takes risks in order to double the amount of talents originally given to him by the Master. This kind of servant knows his Master that well, that His Master is demanding. (Matthew 25:20)
Mary at Bethany: she poured out the oil and wiped Jesus's feet with it and her hair. Did he say to her, "Mary, take this oil, pour it out on my feet, and wipe my feet with your hair"? No. She took the initiative. She didn't have to ask Him or need Him to ask her to do this specifically. She knew Him. (John 12: 1-8)
There are other examples. In the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the father needs to make it explicit to the older son that the older son had always been welcome to have a celebration with friends. Clearly, the older son has not taken the kind of initiative that the tennant and Mary do. There is still something lacking in the older son's understanding of his father's love and nature. Similarly, the father needs to put the robe on the younger son's shoulders and encourage this son to feel welcome as a son rather than a slave. The younger son still has more to learn about his father's love. (Luke 15: 11-32)
As I have already said, I think the Lord has been revealing more about confidence and humility to me through my SHH housing search in ways similar to those in these Scriptural examples. Okay: what is humility not? It does not consist of focusing on weakness or defects; that too, is an expression of pride, this kind of self-deprecation. This self-decprecation is sinful because it consists of a focus on the self rather than God.
True humility exists when our eyes are fixed on Him alone, when our hearts are fixed on the state of His rather than the state of our own, however 'good' or 'bad' that state might be. In times of blessing, all he asks is that we thank Him. In times of distress, all He asks is that we turn to Him. True humility says "I need the Lord" not only because we "know" by faith and by the Bible that we "need" Him. No; even more profoundly, true humility says "I need Him because I love Him." Our love for Him becomes so strong that we can say it is a matter of need. An example: when a man or woman says that they "need" another man or woman, what they mean to express is really love.
God makes it very clear throughout Scripture, in such examples as I have already given, that He does not "need" a slave. He is God: He does not "need" anything or anyone. He wants and desires to lavish love on sons and daughters. He wants the older son to come inside, the younger son to feel comfortable dressed in fine things, to give His children the Kingdom. He wants the Samaritan woman to not just have water but Himself.
Perhaps a more radical example is Job. So often times, I wonder if we say "Poor Job!" too quickly. I wonder whether we can say, "Blessed Job!" The Lord does not want Job to just have good or bad things. God is after the full capacity of Job's heart to love. God cares more about the heart of Job than He cares about the earthly concerns Job has. God's unrelenting and perfect love for Job drove Him to purify Job's heart, even if that meant suffering and ridicule for Job. And then He lavished on Job and gave back to him tenfold all the more because that is the good nature of our God!
God's love for His children is truly relentless and pure. How could we ever hope to imiate such love in our response to Him if He didn't so strongly encourage us to sacrifice all for Him? He knows our condition, our weakness, so He made His loving encouragement Law. And when we failed to keep that, to fully receive His love through perfect obedience to the Law, He sent His own Son, Jesus Christ, that we might be assured all the more that He understands our Fallen condition and so that ultimately, we might be saved from our condition.
Yet His Law and His Son remain the keys to understanding our Father's heart. His Law is not to be discounted. It is an instruction manual to God's heart; we learn much about how He loves and His Nature when we study and keep His Commandments. If it seems as though God has unreasonably high expectations of us, if the Commandments seem too strict, this is only because of our woundedness not His unreasonableness.
And yet we have a Divine Physician, Jesus Christ, who heals us through His death and resurrection! The title of this post is "Kicking Crutches." God has, as I've said in various ways throughout this post, been encouraging me to kick the crutches of fear and self. God has been showing me that although I am a sinner, with His grace, I can really be confident and run. We can kick crutches and run on His strength and grace. We can seek and expect to find the unexpected. We can find a housing situation in downtown Ann Arbor for two months before the end of February. We can walk on water as long as we don't look down and look up at Him. We can trust the grain of wheat to grow even if we can't always see it growing from beneath the ground.
We really can, do, and love "through Jesus Christ who strengthens us" (Philippians 4:13).
Sunday, February 21, 2010
The Goodness of Having Roots
A Disclaimer: At points, this is a more "Catholic" (ie, I use language specific to Catholicism) post than this writer would normally post, but since this blog is this blogger's personal blog and contains reflections on her personal expression of faith and experience of God, but also since she is a great advocate of ecumenism, she is writing with reference to aspects of Catholicism and also giving a disclaimer. This is post about how I've experienced the love of God in my life, and that happens to be through particular aspects of Catholicism. So, I hope this does not offend but inspire!
You know what? I love writing. I cannot explain to you, even in words, even in words and with the grace of the Holy Spirit, explain to you how much I love writing. It is with a supernatural, Godly love that I love writing. Thank you, God, for calling me to such a vocation.
This afternoon, I've been cleaning up, editing, adding, subtracting, shaping, and praying into the most recent blog post. I'll post a link to this new version of the "My New Favorite Color: Pink" post once it is re-published.
Working this post into a new-ish piece has led me to think more about my dear friend whom the post mentions. She must be praying for me these days, or God wants me to pray for her, or both, because I've been reminded of her in small ways often in the past week and a half, beginning with being asked to edit the "Pink" post. Some examples: I met someone with name last week, and the next day, saw a truck with her last name on it pass me on the road. More small things like these have led me to pray for and think of her and her wonderful family.
I often find that God leads me to write about that subject which He has more teaching for me in. (Can you really end a sentence with a preposition like that? No. It makes me cringe...but it's staying.) So this afternoon, I wrote about: my friend, radical discipleship, martyrdom, living single for the Lord, and how to love the world as Christ does. These are not new things to think about, these things I was thinking and writing about this afternoon. I was mainly doing a lot of remembering this afternoon. And so, I've been silently asking Him as I've been writing and thinking this afternoon, "What are you trying to show me?"
"Go back to your roots. Remember how much I have loved you."
This morning, the responsorial Psalm at Mass was one that I have known since kindergarten. The Communion meditation song was one I have known just as long. Singing them was going back to my roots, and this experience was a simple and sweet gift for today. In singing this Psalm and then the other song, I recalled that I am known by the Lord and that we have a history that is very special to Him. And so, this post is mainly about being rooted in the Lord, what do our roots look like, and I'm going to share a bit about some of my "roots."
---
When I was a freshman in high school, my mother had to get to her job early in the morning, which meant that she had to drop me off at school very early in the morning, early enough that there wasn't anyone for me to talk to at the school when she dropped me off. In the fall of my freshman year, sometime near the beginning of the school year, I found myself at school, bored, feeling awkward and lonely, wandering the halls trying to distract myself from these observations.
Then, I hear voices. Where are they coming from? What group of people would be hear so early in the morning? I keep walking the halls, listening and following the voices I hear. Then, I see it: the school chapel, filled with a small crowd of people, lights blazing, and the sacrifice of the Mass being celebrated, just like it is on Sundays, right here, on a weekday, in my very own school.
I can't remember if I walked in that day or sometime within the next few days, but after that day, I knew what I would be doing before school every day that I could until I graduated. I would be at daily Mass. Before that day of following voices, I didn't even know that Mass was celebrated every weekday. I mean, I think I knew it, but I really didn't understand or see those people who actually go to Mass during the week and not just on Sundays.
I did go to daily Mass almost every day during my four years of high school and prayed in the school chapel when I could get to it on my lunch hour. It was such a safe, beautiful, holy place.
Well, daily Mass has become one of those "roots" of my faith. When I first came to college, I felt lost. One of the first things I decided I would do would be to try to go to daily Mass sometimes, so that I would at least be able to encounter God in some familiar, everyday way. There were a lot of uncertainties about this new city, this new schedule and lifestyle, that of a college student, but at least the Mass would be familiar, would be a foundation and compass. And so, throughout college, there were seasons during which I was able to go to daily Mass, thank the Lord.
To this day, when I face confusion, attack, or discouragement, I turn to God in the Mass, and I find in this His resting place, His comfort, and my well-worn place in His presence. Each time I go to Mass, particularly daily Mass, I am aware of my freedom in Him. I think, "I've been here before. I've been here, here in Christ's presence. I can relax." I felt that way this morning, and I was so comforted by the fact that I can still keep going to church, going to Mass and letting God cast out my fears and questions as I have for the past sixteen years.
I just love the Lord so much for giving me a history that has details, specific blessings, memories, and graces with Him. I think the prophets and Psalmists in Scripture feel similarly. They are forever recounting the deeds of the Lord, the history of God's faithfulness to the Israelites, as they turn to praise or seek the Lord in their present circumstance. I said at the beginning of this post that I couldn't find words to express how much I love writing. Same with the Lord--it's hard to express accurately and fully my love for the Lord and nature of God. One way of doing so though is to recount His deeds, concrete times and ways in which He has been at work in my life and others'. I think that oftentimes, when we say to one another, "Hey, remember when..." what we're really saying is "I enjoyed doing that with you" or "I love you." I see this happen with the children I nanny. They often say to me, to one another, or to their parents, "Remember when _____ happened? That was great!" or "Remember when we did _____?" I personally and especially love when they remember how I beat them at Go Ninja Go or made them the sandwich they wanted. :)
In conclusion, perhaps I will exhort you to recount your own "roots" in your relationship with the Lord: what are the strong ones? He's the source, He Himself, not memories, instances of grace, etc. Him and Him alone. But, as I think I've already said, He gives us roots, things to help us stayed connected to Him and to understand His nature and love for us, and so it's good and right to recount the roots and thank Him for them:
"We will not hide [the things that we have heard and known, that our fathers have told us],
but tell to the coming generation
the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might,
and the wonders that he has done.
-Psalm 78: 4, ESV
You know what? I love writing. I cannot explain to you, even in words, even in words and with the grace of the Holy Spirit, explain to you how much I love writing. It is with a supernatural, Godly love that I love writing. Thank you, God, for calling me to such a vocation.
This afternoon, I've been cleaning up, editing, adding, subtracting, shaping, and praying into the most recent blog post. I'll post a link to this new version of the "My New Favorite Color: Pink" post once it is re-published.
Working this post into a new-ish piece has led me to think more about my dear friend whom the post mentions. She must be praying for me these days, or God wants me to pray for her, or both, because I've been reminded of her in small ways often in the past week and a half, beginning with being asked to edit the "Pink" post. Some examples: I met someone with name last week, and the next day, saw a truck with her last name on it pass me on the road. More small things like these have led me to pray for and think of her and her wonderful family.
I often find that God leads me to write about that subject which He has more teaching for me in. (Can you really end a sentence with a preposition like that? No. It makes me cringe...but it's staying.) So this afternoon, I wrote about: my friend, radical discipleship, martyrdom, living single for the Lord, and how to love the world as Christ does. These are not new things to think about, these things I was thinking and writing about this afternoon. I was mainly doing a lot of remembering this afternoon. And so, I've been silently asking Him as I've been writing and thinking this afternoon, "What are you trying to show me?"
"Go back to your roots. Remember how much I have loved you."
This morning, the responsorial Psalm at Mass was one that I have known since kindergarten. The Communion meditation song was one I have known just as long. Singing them was going back to my roots, and this experience was a simple and sweet gift for today. In singing this Psalm and then the other song, I recalled that I am known by the Lord and that we have a history that is very special to Him. And so, this post is mainly about being rooted in the Lord, what do our roots look like, and I'm going to share a bit about some of my "roots."
---
When I was a freshman in high school, my mother had to get to her job early in the morning, which meant that she had to drop me off at school very early in the morning, early enough that there wasn't anyone for me to talk to at the school when she dropped me off. In the fall of my freshman year, sometime near the beginning of the school year, I found myself at school, bored, feeling awkward and lonely, wandering the halls trying to distract myself from these observations.
Then, I hear voices. Where are they coming from? What group of people would be hear so early in the morning? I keep walking the halls, listening and following the voices I hear. Then, I see it: the school chapel, filled with a small crowd of people, lights blazing, and the sacrifice of the Mass being celebrated, just like it is on Sundays, right here, on a weekday, in my very own school.
I can't remember if I walked in that day or sometime within the next few days, but after that day, I knew what I would be doing before school every day that I could until I graduated. I would be at daily Mass. Before that day of following voices, I didn't even know that Mass was celebrated every weekday. I mean, I think I knew it, but I really didn't understand or see those people who actually go to Mass during the week and not just on Sundays.
I did go to daily Mass almost every day during my four years of high school and prayed in the school chapel when I could get to it on my lunch hour. It was such a safe, beautiful, holy place.
Well, daily Mass has become one of those "roots" of my faith. When I first came to college, I felt lost. One of the first things I decided I would do would be to try to go to daily Mass sometimes, so that I would at least be able to encounter God in some familiar, everyday way. There were a lot of uncertainties about this new city, this new schedule and lifestyle, that of a college student, but at least the Mass would be familiar, would be a foundation and compass. And so, throughout college, there were seasons during which I was able to go to daily Mass, thank the Lord.
To this day, when I face confusion, attack, or discouragement, I turn to God in the Mass, and I find in this His resting place, His comfort, and my well-worn place in His presence. Each time I go to Mass, particularly daily Mass, I am aware of my freedom in Him. I think, "I've been here before. I've been here, here in Christ's presence. I can relax." I felt that way this morning, and I was so comforted by the fact that I can still keep going to church, going to Mass and letting God cast out my fears and questions as I have for the past sixteen years.
I just love the Lord so much for giving me a history that has details, specific blessings, memories, and graces with Him. I think the prophets and Psalmists in Scripture feel similarly. They are forever recounting the deeds of the Lord, the history of God's faithfulness to the Israelites, as they turn to praise or seek the Lord in their present circumstance. I said at the beginning of this post that I couldn't find words to express how much I love writing. Same with the Lord--it's hard to express accurately and fully my love for the Lord and nature of God. One way of doing so though is to recount His deeds, concrete times and ways in which He has been at work in my life and others'. I think that oftentimes, when we say to one another, "Hey, remember when..." what we're really saying is "I enjoyed doing that with you" or "I love you." I see this happen with the children I nanny. They often say to me, to one another, or to their parents, "Remember when _____ happened? That was great!" or "Remember when we did _____?" I personally and especially love when they remember how I beat them at Go Ninja Go or made them the sandwich they wanted. :)
In conclusion, perhaps I will exhort you to recount your own "roots" in your relationship with the Lord: what are the strong ones? He's the source, He Himself, not memories, instances of grace, etc. Him and Him alone. But, as I think I've already said, He gives us roots, things to help us stayed connected to Him and to understand His nature and love for us, and so it's good and right to recount the roots and thank Him for them:
"We will not hide [the things that we have heard and known, that our fathers have told us],
but tell to the coming generation
the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might,
and the wonders that he has done.
-Psalm 78: 4, ESV
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